5 Must-Know Facts About Dyslexia & ADA

What are the 5 Facts about Dyslexia and ADA that you must know ? (from a newly released document from the US Department of Justice):

#1. Proof of Past Testing is Generally Sufficient to Support a Request

This is a huge decision – and certain to ease the financial burden for many families have to frequently retest in order to maintain their students necessary accommodations.

#2. ADA Protections Exist for for High School, College, Professional and Grad Schools, Trade Exams

This is huge. The Department of Justice document includes the following tests by name: high school (GED, SSAT, ISEE), college (SAT, ACT), professional (LSAT, MCAT), grad school (GRE, GMAT), trade (cosmetology), professional (bar, medical, including clinical assessments). Many lawsuits have been brought against the College Board for denying accommodations further on in the educational process, but the problem with many previous decisions has been that cases have been settled for the individuals bringing suit, rather than creating broader court decisions that will help future students in similar situations.

#3. Academic Success Does Not Preclude Test Accommodations

This statement is important because it doesn’t require students to fail in order to receive appropriate accommodations. Accommodations are meant to level the playing field – to allow the testing to accurately reflect student aptitude, knowledge, and ability. Dyslexic students may need more time to re, re-read, and check their work for perceptual errors, so accurate testing may only be possible with appropriate accommodations.

This clarification point is also important for the many gifted LD students (like gifted dyslexics) that may not fail their courses or score in the lowest quartile, but yet have test results that don’t accurately reflect their knowledge if accommodations are denied.

#4. Informal Testing Accommodations May Be Sufficient

“Although the student has never previously received testing accommodations through an IEP, 504, or formal private school policy, she may nevertheless be entitled to extended time for the standardized exam.”

#5. Timely Manner and No Flagging

“A testing entity must respond in a timely manner to requests for testing accommodations so as to ensure equal opportunity for individuals with disabilities…Testing entities should report accommodated scores in the same way they report scores generally…Flagging policies that impede individuals with disabilities from fairly competing for and pursuing educational employment opportunities are prohibited by the ADA.”

If your student was not granted accommodations, we strongly recommend including a copy of this document with an appeal. Please share this article with everyone you know. Thank you!

It’s a little confusing Joan, the original regulations were published in 2010 and then an outside expert committee presented its findings in 2014, but the guidelines in the Technical Assistance report was only approved for release in July 2015 (the slow wheels of government).

We were alerted to this release by one of the expert professionals who was consulted for this document.

My dyslexic daughter is a sophomore at college now and although she does receive some of her accommodations she doesn’t always receive all of them. She has the most trouble getting professors to find note-takers. My question is, if the school does not find note-takers for her as is stated in her accommodations, what legal recourse do we have, if any? She has no trouble getting extended time and a separate room for testing/exams and she has received her text in audio without trouble, but the missing note-taking from some classes is clearly hindering her and apparent in her grades. She’s spoken to her disabilities office and they say it’s the professor’s responsibility, not theirs, but the professor’s say they’ve asked and no one has volunteered so there’s nothing else they can do. Does anyone know have any better knowledge of this than I do?

I’ve just been informed by School Admin. that my 9th dyslexic son with a 504 plan, will not be allowed some of his accommodations for certain standardized testing. Most concerning: He will not be allowed to have passages read to him on the The Georgia Milestones test. The GA Milestones test is almost identical to the PARCC and the SBAC (common core tests required for Federal $). The GA Milestone test was written by McGraw-Hill/CTB – also responsible for the Smarter Balance (SBAC). The SBAC and PARCC have been showing 70% fail rates in places like NY, and 91% failure rate for students with learning disabilities.

Though the test does not retain a student if he/she fails, it is counted as 20% of a student’s grade. How does this not violate ADA laws? It clearly favors traditional students over dyslexic students. In my son’s case, more time won’t help. The slow and laborious task of reading the passage leaves him unable to retain what he read. So, he may work and struggle all year, and with the help of his 504 plan, do fairly well – only to have it destroyed by that 20%.

If I’m not mistaken, In NY, there was an attempt to write in a provision to change this, and it was overridden Federally by Arne Duncan.

This doesn’t seem right to me, but I am not a legal authority. The ADA accommodation guidelines are new from the Dept of Justice (as of this summer) though too – so I would appeal in writing and include them with your letter. You can state that you believe their denying him accommodations (to your knowledge) violates his protections under the ADA.

We can tell you what we have recommended to other parents in this setting – in some case we suggested that they contact a university which might have a special education pro bono (i.e. free) clinic or consider a call to a special education lawyer who has 1 hour free phone consultation (Joanne Simon is a famous one in NY who did this – but we don’t know if her availability has changed since she got elected to political office). The idea in these cases is not to sue, but rather to get advice – and sometimes a single page letter that states the legal obligations to this student under the ADA. Sometimes the IEP or 504 team will call the lawyer and things get straightened out for the student. In one case, a very nice special education university lawyer sat in the student’s IEP meeting and answered questions..with the result being this student got all the accommodations she was supposed to.

It’s a pity that it comes to this – but there often isn’t sufficient training of teachers (or IEP teams) regarding accommodations and assistive technology.

I also want to thank you for the work you and Brock are doing. I give your book and website information to every parent of the students I tutor. Additionally, the dyslexia conferences and personal dyslexia stories and videos have been instrumental in helping my students recognize that they are part of an amazing community. Your tireless work is shifting the paradigm of dyslexia. For my own child and the children I tutor, this shift has been life changing. I’ve seen tears of shame eventually turn to tears of joy and pride when they begin to recognize strengths they didn’t know they had.

Please know that what you are doing is making such a wonderful difference. It gives me strength to keep fighting the battles that need to be fought.

Question: does this also apply for getting accommodations for placement tests at public community colleges? My son was not allowed his text to speech accommodation when taking an english placement exam, even thought the disability services office agreed he would have this accommodation in the actual english class. I was too exhausted to fight it. This seems to be a prevalent thing – not giving accommodations for placement exams. Doesn’t make sense.

You raise an interesting point. Sometimes placement exams are needed for determining extra supports. But even if they’re not, we do know some dyslexic authors who make their living from writing today – who nevertheless were placed in remedial and non-graded English. Some of them have said the experience was a great one though – as they learned what they had never been taught before.

I do wonder, though, if a student were able to proficiently dictate a paper using speech to text, whether it would be necessary for them to have to take a remedial course.

Print out the attachment and meet with the Disability Advisor. Perhaps a letter from a high school teacher would also help.

Accommodations must be in place for standardized exams which assess knowledge and admittance to certain